Qinghe Song Clan

Qinghe County, Wei State, Eastern Phoenix Immortal Continent.

At the northeastern corner of Qinghe County stood an immortal mountain shrouded in clouds and mist, its immortal aura drifting through the air. It was called Funiu Mountain.

Funiu Mountain rose nearly a thousand zhang high. Lush grass and green trees covered its slopes, making it resemble a colossal green ox lying prone amid the mountains.

Dozens of pavilions and towers overflowing with immortal aura stood atop the mountain. This was the dwelling place of the Song Family, a Qi Refining cultivation family of Qinghe County.

The Song Family's ancestor had originally been a Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Carefree Sect, one of the dominant powers in the Wei State Cultivation World.

After his death, his descendants suffered exclusion within the sect. Left with no choice, they led their clansmen away from it and came to the relatively remote Qinghe County, where they occupied Funiu Mountain's high-grade spirit vein. They had taken root and multiplied here for nearly two hundred years.

On the western mountainside of Funiu Mountain, inside a hidden cave abode,

a young man in blue robes with an immature face sat at a wooden table, staring at a yellowish-brown beast-hide pouch lying before him.

After a while, the youth picked up the pouch and slowly untied the little purple cord around its opening. A series of metallic clinks rang out as a pile of faintly glowing stones rolled from the bag.

The stones were brilliantly multicolored, each one emitting a somewhat dazzling glow.

The youth then took two more stones from his person, both giving off a faint red light, and placed them among the pile. He began softly counting the glowing stones before him.

"Seventy-five in total. Adding the fifteen Merit Points recorded in the family's Treasury Pavilion, I'm short exactly ten Spirit Stones.

At my current rate of saving, I should be able to exchange for a Qi Gathering Pill in another half year at most. Then I'll be able to break through to the Mid Qi Refining Stage."

After thinking it over, the youth calmed himself and packed all the Spirit Stones back into the pouch. He carefully hid it within a section of the cave wall.

The youth in blue was named Song Qingming. Among the fourth generation of Song Family cultivators bearing the "Qing" generation name, he ranked seventh.

Ten years ago, when he had still been an ordinary mortal, a clansman had fortunately discovered that he possessed a Spirit Root capable of cultivation. He had thus been allowed to enter the family's sacred ground, Funiu Mountain, to cultivate. This year, he had just turned twenty and possessed cultivation at the Qi Refining Third Layer.

If an ordinary mortal possessed a Spirit Root like his, then after cultivating and successfully undergoing Qi Induction, they could enter the Qi Refining Stage and become an immortal cultivator, also known as a cultivator.

Qi Refining Cultivators could cultivate by inhaling and exhaling the Spiritual Energy between heaven and earth, cleansing their marrow and strengthening their bodies.

They could also wield the spiritual power refined within their bodies to cast all manner of spells. High-tier Cultivators could even ride the wind and tread the clouds, move mountains and fill seas, and turn decay into wonder.

In this Cultivation World, ordinary mortals could at most live seventy or eighty years. Qi Refining Stage cultivators, however, normally had a lifespan of two jiazi—one hundred and twenty years—roughly twice that of ordinary mortals.

If one cultivated to an even higher realm, one's lifespan would increase severalfold. Upon Ascending to Immortality, one could become like the immortals of legend, ascend to the immortal realm, and share the lifespan of heaven and earth. This was the Great Path of Longevity pursued by all cultivators.

The cultivation realms of cultivators in the mortal world were mainly divided into five levels: Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, and Spirit Transformation.

It was said that realms higher than Spirit Transformation existed, but the Spiritual Energy in this world was too thin to support cultivators in reaching such heights.

Once cultivators reached the Late Spirit Transformation stage, any further breakthrough in cultivation would bring rejection from Worldly Power, causing them to automatically ascend to another higher world. Thus, the highest cultivation attainable by cultivators in this world was only the Late Spirit Transformation stage.

The glowing stones in Song Qingming's hands were an item in the Cultivation World that could increase a cultivator's cultivation speed. They were also the primary currency used by cultivators in this world to trade for all kinds of cultivation resources.

The "Qi Gathering Pill" he had mentioned was an ordinary medicinal pill that assisted Early Qi Refining Stage cultivators like him in breaking through to the Mid Qi Refining Stage.

Whenever a cultivator's Mana reached the peak of a particular level and they needed to break through to the next, they would encounter a bottleneck—unless they were a genius cultivator born with exceptional Spirit Root Aptitude, in which case they need not worry much about such matters.

Ordinary cultivators could only slowly absorb Spiritual Energy through cultivation to wear away at their bottlenecks. Breaking through in a short period was extremely difficult.

To break through a bottleneck quickly, one needed to rely on external aids such as medicinal pills and spiritual treasures.

Although the Qi Gathering Pill was not a rare pill in Qinghe County, it was still a Level 1 High-grade Spirit Pill. A single pill normally cost at least a hundred Spirit Stones at the Marketplace. Song Qingming had saved for a long time and was still short ten Spirit Stones.

Low-level cultivators like him had few ways to earn Spirit Stones. Aside from the annual Spirit Stone stipend issued by the family, they could occasionally accept low-level family tasks or follow family elders out to hunt demon beasts.

After deducting what was needed for cultivation, they could save at most a dozen or so Spirit Stones in a year.

Over the past few years, Song Qingming had also learned an art of formations within the clan. He helped others in the clan inscribe auxiliary Formation Diagrams onto refined Dharma artifacts and Dharma Robes, as well as set up low-level formations, allowing him to earn some additional Spirit Stones.

Combined with his frugal living over the past few years, he had finally nearly gathered enough.

Though his cultivation speed was average and he had yet to break through to the Mid Qi Refining Stage at twenty, he had at least been born into a cultivation family. From childhood, he had enjoyed the protection of clan elders, and his path of cultivation had been relatively smooth.

Compared to those Rogue Cultivators wandering everywhere, Song Qingming had at least had a fixed spirit vein to cultivate on ever since he entered the path of cultivation. Whenever he encountered something he did not understand in cultivation, clan elders were always available to teach him.

In Qinghe County, however, even more cultivators came from among the various Rogue Cultivators. Most of them had no fixed spirit veins on which to cultivate and had to spend their days rushing about for the sake of a little cultivation resource from an early age.

Spirit veins were the foundation of cultivation. Cultivating atop a spirit vein, where Spiritual Energy was abundant, allowed cultivators to absorb Spiritual Energy several times faster than in the outside world, achieving twice the result with half the effort.

A high-grade spirit vein like Funiu Mountain could easily support the cultivation of more than twenty Qi Refining Cultivators from the Song Family.

Without a spirit vein, cultivating among barren mountains and wild ridges offered only a limited supply of Spiritual Energy. To increase their cultivation speed, cultivators could only rely on refining Spirit Stones to make up the difference, consuming a vast amount of cultivation resources.

Song Qingming had also tried to forcibly break through to the Mid Qi Refining Stage during the past two years. Not only had he failed, but the backlash from his failure had injured his Meridians. It took several months of recuperation before he fully recovered.

Only then did he gradually give up hope and understand that he was no cultivation genius.

If Song Qingming wanted to break through successfully now, then by cultivating slowly and wearing away at his bottleneck, he could naturally achieve a breakthrough within five to ten years.

But that would consume too much cultivation time. Choosing to take medicinal pills to help cultivators break through quickly was also the method used by most cultivators in the Cultivation World.

Although Song Qingming had always cultivated diligently, he was merely a cultivator with four Spirit Roots of metal, wood, fire, and earth. In the Cultivation World, this was only ordinary, low-grade Spirit Root Aptitude.

The types of Spirit Roots within a cultivator's body were also ranked high and low.

They were generally classified according to the number of Five Elements Spirit Roots in one's body, from few to many. Spirit Roots came in five attributes: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

The fewer Spirit Roots a cultivator possessed, the purer the Spiritual Energy they refined from heaven and earth during cultivation, and the faster their cultivation speed would be. Conversely, the more Spirit Roots they possessed, the more mixed the Spiritual Energy they refined became, slowing their cultivation instead.

Cultivators with all five elements present in their bodies, possessing five Spirit Roots and thus Mixed Spiritual Roots, cultivated the slowest.

Unless such cultivators had an enormous supply of resources, it was difficult even for them to cultivate to the Late Qi Refining Stage.

Those like Song Qingming, with four Spirit Roots, possessed Pseudo Spirit Roots. Their cultivation speed was somewhat faster. If they cultivated diligently and received a little assistance from their family in terms of resources, they had a strong chance of reaching the Late Qi Refining Stage.

More than eighty percent of cultivators throughout the Cultivation World were ordinary cultivators with Four or Five Spiritual Roots like him.

Under normal circumstances, cultivators of their kind found it difficult to break through to the next major realm, the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Yet on the path of cultivation, aside from Spirit Root Aptitude, fortune and opportunities were also important.

Though Song Qingming's Spirit Root Aptitude was ordinary, ever since he had embarked upon the path of cultivation ten years ago, he had remained exceptionally diligent and had never slackened in his cultivation.